Adjective: benevolent
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more benevolent |
| Superlative | most benevolent |
Sample Sentences
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Chinese and Eastern mythologies describe dragons as benevolent.
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Benevolence? vvhich ſhall I be benevolent to; or vvhich firſt? I am puſſell'd in the choice. [1641 or 1642 (first performance), Richard Brome, A Joviall Crew: Or, The Merry Beggars. Presented in a Comedie, […], London: […] J[ames] Y[oung] for E[dward] D[od] and N[athaniel] E[kins] […], published 1652, →OCLC, Act III, signature [H4], recto:]
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This bill was not a gift from a benevolent legislature; it was a victory for the community which worked for its passage. [1989 December 24, Kevin M. Cathcart, “Homophobia Never Innocent”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 24, page 5:]
Adjectives inflected like benevolent
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Old French benevolent, borrowed from Latin benevolēns ("benevolent"). Displaced native Old English welwillende (literally well-wishing). See: Latin Adjectives '
benevolēns'.